Out like a Lion

I've often wondered if having One of Those Days was my attitude. On a regular day, am I able to shake it off?  Usually I can manage to do two things at once, but evidently not to day. As I was saying to my almost 12 year old that she was not having a five hour party, I slipped on the stairs. Luckily, I pulled on the rail and only slammed my back into the rail, stopping the fall. I sat down on the stair to regroup, and felt a little hand rubbing my back. Who knew I'd learn how to comfort someone from a child? (I am notoriously unfeeling about scrapes and tears). Today I was given the gift of knowing for certain that Bad Days do happen, and on the last day of the year, no less.  First understand that  I am prone to understatement as opposed to exaggeration. The events of this story are real.

In my deep sleep, I heard rustling paper, which turned out to be my daughter digging up paper to write her birthday party plan.  At the same time, I heard the four year old slide the back door open and yelling,”Don't worry, he'll come back!" (turns out he was talking about the cat, not the dog. Whew).

Holding the party list, wearing my slippers, I headed down the stairs reading the party plan, which is when I fell, as previously described. I don’t know about you, but having reached 40, I am well aware of my age. I do fear falling. It hurts much worse now than when I was fifteen. So it really shook me up, evidently more than I realized.

I always go in and start coffee right away. Stepped away to do other mundane things and when I came back to check on it: What you can’t see in the photo are all the grounds floating at the top of a full basket. 

I also managed to dump the water from the reservoir all over the floor while cleaning the machine. There were grounds everywhere. Of course, the greatest travesty was that I also got water on my four year  old’s Sit n Spin.

So, 2011: Adios. I’ll  miss most of you, and thanks for the lesson.

Turning 40-Something

I'm starting my blog on an odd day.  In four days, I'll be turning 43.  I was ok with it.  Really I was.  I was focused on the eReader my husband is picking out for me, not on the number. 
Then, it happened.  The trigger of reality.  My fifteen year old daughter came to me and said she was doing a Family Tree for Spanish class, and showed me the picture of Grandpa she was using. "buuuut, that means I'll be using a picture of you, too."  There are two ways I could take this.  I could go with making it funny, or letting it hurt.  I tried to take it funny. 
I said,"make sure you pick a good one." 
"That's going to be kind of hard."
Ouch. I don't exactly remember my response, but Precious Teen followed me around hollering,"because I took them myself!", so she must have realized she punched me in the gut. 
So I put it on Facebook.  The whole time I was typing in my story (See, Precious Teen is grounded from FB right now and couldn't defend herself) I was laughing myself silly.  I had tears rolling down my face.  But as I pushed "comment" or "enter", and wiped the tears of hilarity away, I realized I'd actually been crying, and that I felt hurt.  That is a new emotion for me.  Usually I react in anger, or righteous indignation, but I've always thought that if you have people around you that you trust, and know they didn't mean to be malicious, that it shouldn't hurt.
Here's the background of her comment, aside from her dear mother being in a tender state of Pre-Birthday Sensitivity.  PT can't take a good picture even with our fancy camera.  During that gap between when you push the button and the picture uploads, something always happens, especially if she is aiming the camera at me.  I didn't even know my face did the things she captures on SD card.  During Christmas, this became a running joke, because it was worse than usual.  So, when she came to me, all cautious, it wasn't really because she thinks I'm so hideous that she hesitates to use a picture of me on her family tree.  That is just my own preconception.
Then the comments came in on my FB entry, saying she was just like her mother.  UH Oh!  Are my funny comments taken as sharp hits to the gut to my friends?  Maybe I think too much, but wow.  All this time, I was focussed on my hurt, but maybe I need to focus on how my comments strike others...
But I'm still getting a new hair-style tomorrow.